Being 'In the Know'

Photography is hard. Well, I take that back. Photography is a learning experience. There. That's better. For two days, I've been struggling with my SB600 Nikon Speedlight. I own it, but have never actually had to use it. A few months ago, when I initially purchased it, I found a website that taught me to use the speedlight when it's not attached to the camera. I had to adjust this, and configure that. By the end of the tutorial, I got it to work. Back into the bag it went.

Fast forward to a few months later. Up until now, I actually had no use for the flash. I needed the flash to take pictures of a house without electricity. "No problem," I thought to myself. The expectation was that I'd simply attach the speedlight and take the pictures. Well, that didn't happen. Long story, short, I had to make a telephone call to Nikon. Master reset fixed the issue. Can I just say that I could faster learn to read and write in Chinese than understand a Nikon manual? SHEEESH!

Let's talk more about the learning experience that is photography. I've purchased Kenko Extension Tubes. When they arrived at my house, I was afraid to open the box. I don't know why, but I was. Anyways.... when I finally opened the box, to my surprise, there was a large hollow tube, that could be separated into three sections. I was worried. The extension tube(s) was not what I had expected. They seemed so.............well...., so simple. Where I went wrong, was actually having expectations. I'm not sure why I insist on knowing everything about a subject I obviously know nothing about, LOL! Quite honestly, I was expecting optics to be in the tubes. It was explained to me, however, that the tubes are designed to trick the camera sensor into thinking that it's actually further away from an object.

Using extension tubes for the first time is something that I can only equate to a guy having sex for the first time: They know where it goes, but they're not sure where it goes, LOL!!!!! Ok, sorry, I couldn't resist. I put the all three rings of the tube on my camera, slapped on my 55-200 and pointed at one of the lillies in my. I GOT NOTHING BUT A BUNCH OF NOISE AND BLUR. The lens started hunting like we were searching for deer!

At long last, my Photography Masters let me know that I had to be closer to the the object that I was trying to photograph. VERY CLOSE. Here's what I got: